Three-register tauroctony from Acbunar

TNMM 2508 ↔ CIMRM 2291

Two fragments of a yellowish marble relief. Bucarest, National Museum.

Parvan in AAcRom. 1914, 514, 3 (545, 3) and Pl. VIII, 2. See fig. 634, a–b. LeRoy Campbell in Berytus XI, 1954, 50 No. 356.

The relief is divided into three parts by two horizontal rims. In the centre Mithras as a bullkiller. On the smaller fragment (H. 0.15–0.13 Br. 0.09–0.07 D. 0.03; Inv. No. L 952):

1) Part of the bull in a small boat.

2) A person in Oriental dress kneeling before the rock. He presses his r.h. against his forehead.

3) A lying ram and a dog above it.

4) Above 3 a bull in a small house.

Under a horizontal rim the foremost part of the raven is visible above the Phrygian cap of one of the torchbearers. The top of Mithras' Phrygian cap. On the other fragment (H. 0.18 Br. 0.20 D. 0.025; Inv. No. 724) the bull as far as the neck. No scorpion or serpent; the foremost part of the dog. Before the bull the lower part of Cautopates standing cross-legged. Behind him an amphora and under it divided from it by a horizontal rim:

5) Sol in a crown standing in a one-horse chariot. He helps Mithras ascending.

6) God (Saturnus) with upraised r.h. entwined by a serpent.